


Dickface Returns

by thecurlymop



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 9,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3353891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecurlymop/pseuds/thecurlymop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben left Bea five years ago and just when everything seems to be going well in her life, guess who appears again. Originally a series of ficlets on tumblr written for the lovely little ficlets challenge. Now edited a bit to try and make them coherent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Resolutions

Beatrice hated this exercise thing but Hero had pushed her into it. Apparently it would make her feel better about herself or something ridiculous. So she’d made a resolution to go to the gym every day and so far she’d done it. Well, apart from that day when Leo had invited her for lunch. Oh and when she’d gone to visit her parents. But she was sticking to her resolution really well.

‘Beatrice!’ Pedro hailed her as she slipped into the coffee shop after her workout. ‘Ready to eat all the calories you’ve just burnt off?’

‘What have you got today? Cookies?’

‘Yep, Hero’s recipe, as always.’

He’s already putting them in a bag before she answers. ‘I’ll have three.’

He adds another to the already bulging paper bag. ‘Done. And a coffee? Also, Bea, there’s something you should know…’

Beatrice looked at him enquiringly. As the manager of the largest coffee shop in their area, Pedro usually knew all of the gossip and could be counted on to share it with his friends. ‘It’s about Ben…’

‘I don’t want to hear about Dickface,’ she says, grabbing her bag of cookies and absently beginning to eat one.

‘But Bea, you’ll want to know this, he’s coming back.’


	2. Birds

She walked back to the house slowly, stopping to sip her coffee when it had cooled enough and thinking hard.

There was a small bird creature pottering across the road towards her and she was suddenly reminded of the absurdity of Ben’s bird stories. Urgh everything was reminding her of Ben. The coffee she was drinking was the result of a concentrated effort to stop drinking tea after the bastard had left. Even the scent of tea brewing made her feel slightly nauseous after five years of never touching the stuff. Ben. Benedick. Dickface. Why was he coming back? Why now when she was finally settling into her life? Was he just going to come along and upset everything like he always did?

It had hurt so much when he left. It's not like they were a grand romance but she had thought they had a future. And then there he was, blabbering something about being urgently needed back in England and the next week he had vanished, never to be seen again until now. Well if he thought he could slip back into her life the way he had slipped out of it, he could think again. She didn't intend to let anyone cause her that kind of pain again. Especially anyone called Benedick.


	3. Breakfast

She didn’t usually eat breakfast but the next morning she settled at the kitchen table next to Hero and poured herself a cup of coffee. Hero eyed her suspiciously and then took a bite of her toast, continuing to gaze at Bea as if there was something written on her forehead.

‘Didn’t you sleep well?’ she asked sympathetically after she had swallowed her mouthful.

Beatrice mumbled something she hoped could be taken as an answer and subsided into her coffee mug. There was a reason she didn’t eat breakfast. She hated making conversation this early in the morning. That had been one of the things she an Ben could agree on with no argument at all.

‘Uh oh,’ Hero said, ‘that’s your Ben face. I take it you’ve heard the news then?’

‘Beatrice picked up an apple and bit into it viciously, grimacing as the taste clashed with her coffee.

Hero continued, ‘I mean we were trying to decide how to tell you. It seemed best that Pedro tell you as if it was just some gossip he’d picked up.’

Beatrice swallowed hastily, ‘wait, you knew? Who knew? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you need to decide how to tell me? I’m not some fragile glass flower you know, I can deal with this, I’ll be fine. I don’t need you to protect me.’

‘All the same, we were worried about you, about this,’ Hero gestured, ‘this kind of reaction. I mean you don’t look like you’ve slept at all.’

Beatrice ignored her cousin’s touching concern. ‘When is he arriving? Do you know where he’ll be staying? DO YOU KNOW WHY HE’S COMING?’

‘Um, I think he’s staying with Pedro and Balth until he finds somewhere of his own. Balth said something about Tuesday and the airport but he was a bit distracted honestly. Pedro was writing messages in the foam of his coffee…’

Beatrice nodded understandingly. She’d seen the effect of Pedro’s foam art messages on Balthazar many times.

‘Oh and as for why he’s coming, I think he… well anyway, something changed and he decided to come back here. I think he prefers it to the UK.’

‘You can mention him you know. I’m fine, I’ll be fine.’

‘Yes but…’

‘Seriously Hero. I don’t want to see him or anything but it’s fine if you do. You can even talk about him. I promise it’ll be fine, I’ll just try and avoid him and if I do meet him I’ll just be perfectly polite.’


	4. Introduction

It’s so weird to be introduced to someone you were so close to. This is the first time Bea’s actually had to talk to him. She’s seen him once or twice, across the café, on the other side of the street, it’s usual to bump into people you know in this area of town. Before she could quickly enter Ursula’s conversation though, Ellen had come up to her smiling broadly and gushing.

‘Bea, have you met Ben yet? I think you two would really get along!’

Bea sighs. Ellen’s so enthusiastic, adorable even, one of Hero’s friends but bless her, she doesn’t remember information very well. Across the room, Hero is trying not to panic as Ellen ‘introduces’ Ben and Bea.

‘Er Hi,’ she says awkwardly, trying not to look at him directly.

‘Hi. How are you?’ he replies softly.

‘Oh! Do you already know each other?’ Ellen says with an extra bounce (she always bounces, her energy is terrifying)

‘Well I’ll just leave you to catch up then! I’m sure you must have lots to talk about!’

‘I’m okay, you?’ she asks, equally softly.

‘Yeah, been better. It’s nice being back here though.’

She chances a look up at his face and risks being blinded by his happy smile.

‘Er Bea? We should probably talk about umm, everything at some point?’ he says tentatively. ‘I mean, I’m going to be sticking around and I’d like it, well, not to be like this between us. Maybe we could clear the air?’

She winces. She doesn’t want to talk, since when did he become so keen on airing his feelings? He wasn’t like that when… But she’s not going to think about that.

‘I don’t really want to talk,’ she says eventually, ‘I’m fine, you can do your thing, I’ll do mine.’

'But I don’t want to avoid you.’

‘Then don’t. Be civil. But I don’t want to talk. I’m fine. I’ve got nothing to say. It was all a very long time ago.’

‘It was five years ago. Not that long really. What if I need to say something to you?’

‘Write it down. Burn it. Never think of it again. I need a drink.’

She heads to the bar without looking back and curses the fact that she’s either going to have to deal with Dickface being around or get a whole new group of friends. Urgh.


	5. Watching

Ben’s watching Bea watching him. It would be funny if it didn’t hurt, he supposes. Since their awkward reintroduction she’s been very carefully not looking at him but he can feel her gaze on him every time he looks away.

‘Enjoying the view?’ Pedro says from beside him.

Ben jumps and then attempts to look as if he knew Pedro was there. ‘What view?’ he replies nonchalantly, waving a careless hand and nearly knocking a wine glass over for added effect.

‘Well you keep watching Beatrice. Funny thing is,’ he pauses to sip his drink, ‘she keeps watching you. Only you seem to keep missing each other. Strange.’

‘Pedro, shut up,’ Ben says, with no real spite, ‘it’s just weird seeing her again, even weirder talking to her earlier.’

‘Yes I saw that, would you call it the most awkward reintroduction ever?’

‘Not quite but it was heading that way. I don’t think she’s forgiven me.’

‘I don’t either to be perfectly honest. And I don’t really blame her, you were absolutely out of line, mate.’

‘I know. I was just hoping, well I mean I wanted to be civil, friendly. I know we can probably never be good friends but at least polite acquaintances. And then I saw her and I just really missed her all of a sudden.’

‘Do you still fancy her?’ Pedro asks bluntly.

‘Err,’ Ben laughs nervously, ‘can I ignore that question?’

Pedro mentally high fives himself for indulging his curiosity. Ben has all but said that he still has a thing for Beatrice. He wonders about her… maybe Hero will find out.


	6. Makeup

‘Do you think you’ll ever make up?’ Hero asks idly, remembering Pedro’s comments the other day about Ben’s feelings towards Bea.

‘Who?’ Bea says, turning the page of her book.

‘You and Ben.’

Beatrice lets out a snorting laugh that is intended to express her disgust with the idea and mostly just hurts her nose. ‘I think that’s unlikely Hero, I mean neither of us have anything in common anymore so it’s not like we’d have a reason to be friends.’

‘But you were such good friends before, well, before all of that. You were so good together.'

‘And then he buggered off. Besides, I don’t think he has any interest in being friends. He just wants to forget anything he did and politely ignore me.’

‘Let’s ignore him for a moment. What do you want?’

Bea sighs. ‘I don’t know Hero. It’s weird having him back here, I want to yell at him but also I just want to forget that he even went away. And then I remember how hard it was when he left and I just want him to go away and never come back.’

Hero remains silent and pours more tea. It seems that Pedro’s suspicions were right but she now needs to work out what to do with the information that both Bea and Ben still have feelings for each other.


	7. Hypothetically

‘Hey Pedro, can I have a cupcake please. Also, are you free now? I’ve got an idea…’

‘Sure Hero, yeah, we’re not exactly that busy right now, I’ll bring it over to your table?’

Pedro grabs Hero’s cupcake and guesses that she might like a drink of some kind. He doubles back past the cookie jar at the last moment to get something for himself, it’s miserable watching other people eat all the time and not being able to do so himself.

‘So,’ he says, settling opposite her, ‘what can I do for you, most fair Hero?’

‘It’s about Beatrice. And Benedick.’

‘Ah.’ ‘I mean, I feel that we could do something to help. Hypothetically.’

‘Hypothetically?’

‘Yes. I mean obviously it’s just an idea, a hypothesis if you like, but you know I’m sure they’d get more comfortable with each other if we pushed them together a bit. Hypothetically.’

‘This brings back memories. I thought we’d agreed to stop interfering in other people’s love lives after the first team love gods.’

‘Yes but then we had such a success with you and Balthy. We just never expected that Beatrice and Benedick would ever need our services again.’

‘Well, in this hypothetical world, what would we do, just out of interest?’


	8. Crime

‘I think in some societies this could be seen as a crime,’ Balthazar hisses as he holds the torch above the open drawer.

‘It’s fine, we just need to find her diary, Hero knows it’s here but she had to be on distraction duty.’

‘I still don’t get why Hero couldn’t do this herself,’ Balthy mutters, shuffling so that the torch light wobbles inconveniently.

‘Can you imagine what would happen if Bea found Hero looking through her most personal items? Nah, we need Bea to trust Hero above everything else. This is the only way we can find out if our plan has any possibility of succeeding though, we need to find out what’s in Miss Duke’s head. Aha!’

He finally grabs the diary from the depths of the drawer and tucks it into his pocket. ‘We’re done, come on.’

‘You can’t just take it!’ Balthazar protests as Pedro leads them to the door.

‘Well actually I can. We know for a fact that Bea writes her diary every other day at about 6pm. So as long as I pass it back to Hero by tomorrow we’ll be fine. Hero can just say that Bea left it out somewhere and she found it.’

Balthy continues to protest while they walk down the stairs and his gesticulating, though adorable is causing the torch light to ricochet across the walls. Pedro quickly grabs the torch and then, because he can, he grabs Balthy too. They are halfway down the stairs, it’s not exactly the safest place for a quick kiss but who cares.

‘Have I mentioned how much I appreciate you helping?’ Pedro murmurs. ‘Because if I haven’t, I don’t know why not.’

‘I can think of a way you could show your appreciation…’


	9. Magic

Hero meets Pedro in the café the next morning and together they pour over the diary for any mention of Ben. They tell themselves that it’s fine because they’re only invading Bea’s privacy for one reason and if it seems that their plan to get Bea and Ben back together might work then they’ll be guaranteeing both their best friends’ future happiness. That’s what they tell themselves but they both feel guilty.

‘Aha!’ Pedro exclaims, ‘look here!’

Hero follows to where he is pointing and begins to read out loud. ‘Ummm oh there “He is still the same Dickface and the worst part is that I can still tell that the magic is there, ready to make everything better, if we wanted to let it.” Woah. That is kind of all the confirmation we need.’

Pedro nods, scanning the page a little further down. ‘Eww!’ he yelps, slamming the diary shut on Hero’s fingers.

‘Ouch! What?’ ‘Well,’ he grins, ‘there was some more detail about a dream and a certain Bene _dick_ that I didn’t want to read further.’

Hero winces and pushes the diary into her bag so that she can take it home. Rather than thinking about what Pedro might have read, she moves on to the more important things. ‘Right, so what’s the plan?’


	10. Party

Pedro and Hero’s planning session had been interrupted only a few times by customers and they’d managed to sort out exactly what they wanted to happen between their soon-to-be happy couple by the time Balthazar came home from work. He wandered into the café, confused to discover that the door was still open although the café should have closed an hour ago.

‘Hi Balth,’ Hero smiled, spotting him over Pedro’s shoulder.

Pedro turned, grinning happily, to kiss him hello.

‘What have you two been up to then? Did you know the door’s still open?’ he asked, sitting down next to Pedro.

‘The door’s still open?’ Pedro replied, ‘oh, I hadn’t been checking the time. I’ll go now…’

Balthazar peered at the notes written in Pedro’s scrawl and annotated by Hero. ‘Convince Ben to take Bea on a drive? Shut them in an attic? Take them to the zoo and bump into each other at the flamingo enclosure? What are you plotting?’

‘How to get them back together,’ Hero replied. ‘We’ve had a really good planning session.’

‘You’re mad!’ he exclaimed. ‘Is this why you needed the diary?’

‘Yep, and now we have a good feeling that our plans will succeed. Mark my words, they’ll be back together in a month, or maybe even less.’ Pedro said, returning from locking all the doors.

Balth sighed. ‘Right, well I suppose I’d better hear what you’ve been plotting. Pizza party upstairs? It’s a good thing Ben’s not got back yet, you’re going to have to be careful not to leave this stuff lying around.’

The three of them gather up the plans and climb up the steep stairs to Pedro and Balthazar’s flat above the café. By the time they’ve settled in the big kitchen, they’ve narrowed it down to three pizza toppings and just decide to get one each.


	11. Sleepover

The next morning, Ben came downstairs to find Pedro opening up the café and welcoming the few very early morning customers.

‘Can I have a hot chocolate?’ Ben asks, once Pedro has served everyone.

‘No tea this morning?’ Pedro says with a smirk.

‘I’ve had that already. But I feel like hot chocolate and yours is much better than when I make it.’ Ben fiddles with a cookie jar, adjusting the label so it is perfectly straight. ‘You sounded like you were having fun last night. I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.’

‘Nah, just a bit of fun,’ Pedro replies easily, remembering what state they’d been in by the time Ben had arrived. Luckily the plots had been tidied away by Hero and Balthazar before they’d started on the alcohol though.

‘From my room it sounded like the start of a teenage sleepover.’

‘Sorry, did we keep you awake?’ Pedro asks, handing over the hot chocolate.

Ben takes a sip and yelps at the temperature. ‘Well, Hero didn’t stay for very long after I came back, did she? And I’m used to you and Balthazar by now.’ Ben winks awkwardly and Pedro inwardly shudders at what he thinks Ben might be implying.

‘And on that note,’ Ben continues, ‘I’m going to start looking for my own place. It’s not that I don’t like living with you two, it’s just I think we all need our own space, particularly for… sleepovers.’

Pedro thwacks him hard on the shoulder and doesn’t apologise when he coughs and splutters on an overlarge gulp of hot chocolate as a result. Honestly, he’s not sure whether Beatrice deserves the annoyance that is Benedick Hobbes, even if she seems to want him.


	12. Olives

Ben doesn’t waste time, having decided he’s going to find his own flat, he begins the search immediately. Pedro suspects he may have started looking some time before actually because he has a lot of flat viewings lined up over the next few days.

Ben takes someone with him for every viewing, convinced that he’s going to miss something vitally important without another person to look as well. Pedro goes with him to two group viewings before deciding that he can’t deal with Ben in the grips of house hunting mania and sends Balthazar instead. Balth, a little more tolerant, or at least able to keep his feelings to himself on the subject of Benedick, lasts four viewings. Pedro volunteers Hero and there the fun really starts.

‘He would not shut up about this painting on the wall. I mean, it was a painting of olives but it wasn’t that bad and he could easily have taken it down. But for some reason it was offending him and so he just kept asking the agent about it and left me to ask all the practical things. I am not doing that again.’

Pedro looks at Hero admiringly. She’s very pretty, she always has been, but when she rises to this kind of indignation, she becomes incredibly beautiful. He’s always thought that, although pretty, she wasn’t very animated, but occasions like this prove him wrong. He passes her a smoothie and a cookie and prepares to listen a bit more, that’s half his job after all, it’s like being a barman but without dealing with drunks.

‘Anyway, I’m not going again, you and Balthazar have cried off. How do you think we can persuade Beatrice to go? She’s pretty much the only one who can make him focus on things that aren’t paintings of olives.’

‘We’d have to trick her,’ he says dubiously, ‘and subtly challenge her to spend time with Ben, without explicitly stating that we’re challenging her…’


	13. Family

‘I went to look at a flat with Ben yesterday,’ Hero says conversationally.

Bea grunts, face buried in a cup of coffee.

‘It wasn’t the most enjoyable experience if I’m honest,’ she continues, ‘in fact I found myself trying not to hit him after about ten minutes, he’s very irritating isn’t he?’

Beatrice grunts again but it sounds more interested and Hero takes that as a sign to continue.

‘So I was thinking, Ben needs someone to go along with him and, well, I’ve tried and so have Pedro and Balthazar but none of us can stop him focussing on completely impractical things so it’s just been a waste of time. But we were thinking-‘

‘Who was thinking?’ Bea interrupts sharply.

‘Well… all of us, that you could maybe go? And like, it would be a really big favour and I’d bake you cookies to say thanks and I know you don’t really want to spend time with him but he did say himself that you would be better than anyone else at making him be practical and make a decision.’

‘He said that?’ Bea asks softly, face finally appearing completely from behind her mug. ‘He said that he wanted me to come?’

Hero grins inwardly, she knew that a little white lie would go a long way, if Bea thought that Ben wanted her to come, she would be so much more likely to say yes…

‘No, I’m sorry Hero, I get that it must be frustrating and I’d love to help you guys out, you know I love to help family and I don’t just mean you but the boys as well. But I just don’t think I’ll be able to deal with spending time with him like that. And he is horribly frustrating isn’t he? Now you know why I used to slap him a lot.’

‘You had my sympathy, Bea, but more so now!’ Hero replies, trying to remain seemingly unbothered by Bea’s response. She is annoyed though, she had hoped it would be easier to push Ben and Bea together, after all, they both wanted to be together.


	14. Chapter 14

Beatrice left Hero munching on toast and wandered back to her room, thinking hard. Hero had obviously been trying to get Bea to go flat hunting with Ben. But why?

Bea had already expressed her disinterest in anything more than casual acquaintance with Ben so why was Hero pushing them together. Unless, wait, did Ben want to get them back together? He had been quite friendly when they had met.

Disgusted, Bea goes into her room to get dressed. But first she needs a shower to get the uncomfortable sensation of her feelings for Benedick off her skin.

Even after her shower though, she can still feel _feelings_. She doesn’t like it very much. Benedick’s return had already caused some confusion about her feeling for him, having him around, being talked about by the others, just reminded her of him, how happy they had been. And now this.

If she didn’t know that her friends knew better, she’d swear they were attempting to resurrect the old ‘team love gods’ thing, pushing her and Benedick together.

But that would be stupid, there was nothing between them anymore and they couldn’t be silly enough to think it would work.


	15. Clothes

Ben had long since run out of clean clothes and he didn’t seem to be aware that washing machines existed so he’d moved on to Pedro’s wardrobe.

‘Pedrooooo,’ he called down the stairs, ‘can I borrow a shirt?’

‘Yeah,’ Pedro yelled back, resigned to this invasion, ‘as long as it’s not…’

Ben cantered down the staircase wearing Pedro’s newest smartest blue shirt. Damn, he’d been saving that for date night on Friday and now Ben was wearing it, the chances of it ever looking nice again were very slim.

‘I found this one at the back,’ Ben was saying, ‘it doesn’t look like you’ve worn it much, it’s nice though, if you don’t want it I’ll keep it.’

‘Actually,’ Pedro began through gritted teeth, ‘it’s-‘

‘Right I’m off,’ interrupted Balth, dropping a kiss on his cheek, ‘I’ll see you later. Is that a new shirt Ben? It’s nice.’

Pedro resisted the urge to bang his head on the counter. Not only had Ben nicked his new shirt, now Balth had seen it so even if he got it back, he’d assume that Pedro had nicked it from Ben and not the other way around. At least Balth had liked it, he supposed, even if it had been modelled by someone else.

He watched in resignation as Ben poured a cup of tea and then proceeded to spill it on himself. Yep, he was definitely going to have to buy a new shirt. And find Ben a flat very quickly before he killed him. Somehow he didn’t think that raiding wardrobes was a good justification for murder but right now it felt like it.


	16. Birthday

Beatrice enters the café just as Pedro is putting the final touches on his decorations.

‘Is it someone’s birthday? Oh god, is it Balthazar’s birthday? No wait, that’s not for ages-‘

‘We’re celebrating. Ben found a flat,’ Pedro explains before she can get any more tangled up in her thoughts.

‘Oh. Right then. Can I have a coffee and some cookies please.’

He smirks as she so obviously changes the subject but starts on the coffee anyway. He brings it to the table she’s sitting at when it’s done even though it’s unusual for her to stay and eat. He looks around, they’re not busy, so he settles in next to her.

‘Did you have a good gym session?’ he asks.

‘Nah, it wasn’t that great, I haven’t been for a while so it was hard work,’ she nibbles on a cookie and takes a sip of coffee before continuing. ‘So, um, when did he find a flat?’

He fakes astonishment, ‘you want to know about him? Oh well, he found the flat a week ago but he didn’t like it due to some olive thing-‘

‘Oh yeah, Hero said something about that,’ she murmurs.

‘But then it turned out that the agent understood his aversion to the painting completely and arranged to have it moved.’

‘That seems like a lot of commitment for a lettings agent,’ she says, confused.

‘Well, I don’t think she just wants to be his lettings agent if you know what I mean… the last time she was in here she was strongly hinting that they should go for a drink some time.’

She snorts with laughter, ‘he’ll never go for that. He hates really obvious chatting up.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought but he didn’t exactly refuse. Not like I expected him to anyway.’

She doesn’t say anything and then the junior barista calls him over to help with a sudden rush of customers. When he looks over again a few minutes later she is sipping her coffee contemplatively and crumbling the remains of her cookie into dust. Another white lie but it seems to have had an effect.


	17. Song

A few evenings later, Ben and Balthazar and Pedro find themselves in the café for one final evening before Ben moves into his new flat the next day. The knowledge that this is their last night living together has made them all somewhat nostalgic for ‘the good old times.’

They’ve been doing pretty well at avoiding the great elephant of Beatrice until Ben brings it up.

‘Balthy, do you remember when you helped me write a song?’ he says, mumbling slightly.

‘Yeah,’ Balthazar answers, exchanging glances with Pedro.

‘It was a good song… I liked it… I can’t remember it though,’ he muses.

‘Well you have drunk quite a lot,’ Pedro interjects.

‘No, I mean, I can’t remember it. I forgot it. I didn’t want to remember it and now I do.’

Balthazar and Pedro stare at each other over Ben’s head which is slumping dangerously close to his drink. ‘Was a good song,’ he mumbles, head finally hitting the counter, ‘good subject to sing about, wish I could remember, want to sing it to her… but she doesn’t want...’

‘Ben? Benedick?’ Pedro says gently.

‘Um I think he’s had enough to drink?’ Balthazar offers, ‘should we try and get him somewhere more comfortable to sleep it off?’

‘Yeah.’ They heave Ben’s unconscious body between them although it’s not entirely easy with the height difference and in the end they sling him over one of the leather covered benches with his feet hanging off the end. There’s no way they could get him up to the flat.

Pedro puts a glass of water and some painkillers on the table next to him and they head upstairs.

‘Balth?’ Pedro asks when they are curled up together, about to go to sleep.

‘What?’

‘Do you still remember the song you wrote for me?’

‘Of course- but- I think Benedick, er, well I think he probably chose to forget the song. I don’t need to do that because it only really brings back happy memories.’

Pedro pulls Balthazar closer in response and they drift off to sleep.


	18. Shopping

It is a truth universally acknowledged that going shopping on a Saturday afternoon is hell. Beatrice can’t understand why Hero couldn’t do without the vanilla pods for her cheesecake but now she is stood in the middle of the baking aisle searching frantically without knowing exactly what the blasted thing looks like.

‘Aha!’ she leans in to grab the packet labelled luxury vanilla pods and considers doing a victory dance.

‘Beatrice?’ a familiar voice comes from behind her and she pauses in the act of raising her arms.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

She turns, still with her hands half raised, trying to pretend she wasn’t about to wave them in a victorious fashion. ‘I’m fine, why?’

‘Well it’s just, your arms look a bit…’

‘A bit what?’ she snaps, lowering them quickly. ‘I’m fine. What can I do for you Ben?’

‘Er, I just wanted to say hi.’

‘Hi. I’m going to go and buy this now. Bye.’

‘Oh okay. Um, it was nice seeing you? Bye!’

She pays, praying that he’s stuck somewhere far behind her, still wading through trolleys full of the weekly shop and bawling toddlers. It’s not that she hates him, although that is a pretty horrible thing to hope for someone, it’s just that she just really doesn’t want to talk to him.


	19. Letter

Dear Beatrice-

I’m sorry. That’s the most important thing. If you stop reading here, I don’t blame you, but just know that I’m sorry.

Something came up and I have to go home. Not the home that you know as mine but home home. Britain. I’m not sure when or if I’ll be back.

I’m so sorry. If, by any chance, you want to contact me, Pedro has my details.

-Benedick

Beatrice sighs and refolds the letter. It’s hard to read, partly because of Ben’s awful handwriting, but also because it brings back memories.

The day she woke up and the bed was cold beside her, Ben’s side of the wardrobe cleared apart from one hoodie that she liked to wear, the note on the kitchen table. She had crumpled on the floor and stayed there, crying and swearing and imagining she could hear his footsteps and feel his arms around her.

Pedro and Balthazar had come to check on her that evening and found her still in her pyjamas and curled on the sofa watching nothing on the blank screen of the television. They had fed her and pushed her into the shower and tucked her up in bed and then when she asked them not to go, they stayed with her, one on either side, keeping her safe and warm and calm.

The next morning she let them make breakfast and tidy up and then she chucked them out.

She’d moved in with Hero a few weeks later, unable to bear the silence without Ben.


	20. Words

Through overheard words and phrases she’d sort of pieced together what had happened. A business had gone under, debt was mentioned, fraud perhaps, financial trouble was definitely part of it. And she knew that although Ben was very firmly settled in New Zealand, he still had that part of himself that belonged back in Blighty.

Still, all she had was what she’d overheard and she didn’t really want to know. It was easier in a way to just see him as the villain of the story, that he’d left her for an unknown reason and she would never forgive him. No matter how the words she overheard made her feel.


	21. Food

Beatrice always found that brooding made her hungry. And she’d been brooding for ages, since she’d bumped into Ben in the supermarket. If she was being perfectly honest, she’d been brooding for longer than that. Anyway, she decided that a walk and some fresh air would do her good so she ambled to the café rather than seeing what she could scrounge up at home.

‘Bea!’ Pedro hailed her as she came through the door. ‘We’re quite busy today, do you want to go up to the flat?’

This was a bonus of being friends with the manager of the café, when there was no-where to sit, he let her go up into the upstairs flat. She took her coffee and cookies and started up the stairs behind the counter.

‘Uh Bea,’ called Pedro, ‘just so you know, Ben’s up there too.’

She paused. She could always come down again but Pedro’s sofa was comfy and there was always nice music to listen to and Ben had probably already heard her coming up and would be offended if she didn’t come up.

‘Okay, thanks Pedro,’ she called back, continuing up and concentrating on not spilling anything.

‘Hi Bea,’ Ben said from his slumped position in the armchair.

‘Er, hi,’ she replied, putting everything down carefully on the coffee table. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m okay. The cookies are good. I had three.’

She laughs, ‘they should be good, they’re Hero’s recipe.’

‘That makes sense. Anyway, I’m going now. See you around.’ He stands abruptly, crumpling a napkin in his palm.

‘Wait, Ben, can we talk?’

‘Talk? About what?’

‘This,’ she motions awkwardly between them, ‘Us?’

‘There is no ‘us’, that ended years ago.’

She winces. ‘But I mean, maybe we should talk so that things aren’t quite this awkward. I’d like to try to be friends.’

He sighs. ‘It’s a nice idea Bea. I don’t know if it’s going to work. I mean, I did try to say the same thing to you a few weeks ago.’

‘It might work, you never know. I mean, I've been thinking about this since you brought it up and I'd like to try.’

‘Well, for us to talk, we’re going to have to be traditional about this.’ He looks at her mischievously.

‘Um what. No. Nope. No way.’

‘It’s the only way. I-,’ his voice becomes less playful, ‘I don’t think I want to break tradition.’


	22. Bath

‘This is weird isn’t it?’

‘We’re in a bath. It couldn’t be anything but weird.’

Bea wriggles, trying to find a comfortable angle for her legs. They are side by side, legs draped over the edge of the bath in Pedro and Balthazar’s bathroom. It was by no means the most intimate way they’d ever been in a bath together but Bea could feel the skin on the back of her neck prickling with the heightened awareness that came with Ben being so close. They had put the sofa cushions in the bottom of the bath but it was still incredibly uncomfortable.

Bea couldn’t understand what had made her join Ben in this madness and make it a tradition so long ago. Oh wait, that was it, she’d been madly in love and that had encouraged her to do so many things she would never consider doing nowadays.

'So,’ Ben starts, ‘you wanted to talk.’

‘Yeah, she says slowly. ‘I didn’t realise it would require a bath though.’

‘Everything is bath worthy with us,’ he jokes, ‘we once had to have a bath discussion to decide what pizza toppings to get.’

She laughs, ‘we were ridiculous.’

‘Yeah,’ he sighs, ‘I sort of miss it actually.’

‘Couldn’t find anyone to replace me as your bath companion?’ she asks sharply.

‘I wasn’t looking,’ he says simply, and the open entreaty on his face makes her heart want to leap from her chest. She can’t acknowledge that though, even if he can probably see her emotions on her face as clearly as she can see his. They never were very good at lying to each other.

‘Ben,’ she starts, and then pauses because she’s not entirely sure where she’s going with this.

‘Yeah?’ he says encouragingly, shoulder brushing hers as he shifts to turn towards her slightly.

‘Can we back track a bit? I kind of had some things to ask you and I need to know your answers before I do anything else.’

He looks at her appraisingly and she prays he won’t ask her what she wants to do.

‘Ask away then,’ he says. ‘What happened?’


	23. Hero

‘What happened? That’s quite a broad question Bea.’

‘Well it’s what I need to know.’

‘Okay. Let’s go back about six years. You might remember that I started skyping home a bit more often?’

She nods. She remembers. She’d wondered what was going on but she’d got used to it very quickly.

‘Well basically my dad and his brother in law had got into a little bit of trouble. They’d made some stupid decisions and got into quite a bit of debt with the business and somehow they thought I could help.’

She almost laughs at the idea of Ben giving financial advice and he smirks back at her. ‘I know, I’m really not sure why, it’s not like I had much business knowledge but I definitely had a lot more common sense than either of them. Anyway, skipping a bit, the house got repossessed.’

‘WHAT!’

‘Yep, not great. So they called me and asked me to come and help. The thing was, the business was just about picking up again, only they’d got behind on repayments and they needed help. I hadn’t told you anything because I didn’t think it would impact on us, I never thought I would have to go and sort them out. So I left in a panic, I told Pedro where I’d be and hoped you’d get in contact with me so I could explain. I left it up to you because I knew it was a shitty thing to do and I wanted to let you calm down and make up your own mind.’

He stops and takes a deep breath. ‘Only you didn’t call me.’

She reaches out involuntarily to take his hand before remembering that she doesn’t have that right.

‘Pedro said you didn’t even ask what he knew. So I realised that actually I’d picked a good time to go because you’d stopped caring and had obviously been thinking about dumping me anyway.’

She lets out a sound of protest and he smiles wearily at her. ‘I know it was stupid but it seemed plausible at the time. And I started working and trying to sort out the company and save it from the idiocy of my family. Which I did. And then I stayed a bit longer to make sure everything would be okay.’

‘So,’ she ventures, ‘why are you back after five years?’

‘I realised I missed it here. I missed ou-, my friends and the UK didn’t feel like home in the way that NZ did. So I decided to come back home. And here I am sitting in a bath with you.’

‘Are we still sitting in the bath? I hadn’t noticed,’ she says shakily. ‘So all this time I’ve been thinking of you as a villain and actually you’re the hero of the piece?’

‘Pretty much,’ he grins, and she whacks him gently on the shoulder. That grin isn’t good for her aching heart at all.


	24. Pizza

They’re chatting half-heartedly, still sprawled in the bath when someone tries the door and fails to open it. Bea guesses that she’d locked it automatically and she’s very grateful for that.

‘Err, is there someone in there?’ Balthazar says, sounding very confused. ‘Because if you’re a ghost, could you unlock the door please?’

Ben snorts, ‘It’s us Balthy, not a ghost.’

‘Oh, that makes more sense. Wait, us?’

‘Yeah, me and Bea.’

‘Oh. Oooooh, right then, I’ll umm, I’ll leave you two alone.’

‘No wait!’ Ben yelps as he tries to stand up, forgetting about the slipperiness of baths while wearing socks and he goes down hard, creating a loud thump that obviously has Balthazar worried.

‘Guys, I know you’re being passionate and everything,’ he says from behind the door again, ‘but could you try not to destroy our bathroom?’

Ben gets up successfully this time, with help from a giggling Bea and goes over to open the door. ‘We’re not up to anything Balth, we were just making use of your bath.’

Balthazar’s very mobile eyebrows dance in confusion until he looks over to where Bea is extracting herself with a little more grace than Ben managed. ‘Oh, like bathtub of emotions kind of thing?’ he says.

‘Yeah, that’s the sort of thing.’

‘How long were you in there?’ Balthazar asks curiously.

‘A while. But we talked which is the important thing,’ Bea replies, trying to shake some feeling back into her feet.

‘Pedro and I were going to order some pizza, he’s just closing up, do you want to join us?’

‘Wait, is it really that late?’ Ben yelps. ‘God, no wonder I feel like my stomach is shrinking.’

‘Oh is that what those weird noises were?’ Bea teases, ‘I thought it was you clearing your throat? At least that’s what you said…’

‘You didn’t believe me even then so don’t start acting as if you did,’ he snarks back.

Balthazar grins. It looks as if time in the bath has worked its magic on Ben and Bea. He listens to them bickering as he goes to phone for pizza, they haven’t said they’re joining them for supper but he bets they won’t leave for ages yet and they’re clearly hungry.


	25. Coffee

The pizza is consumed with minimal conversation from anyone, they all know that pizza is serious business and distractions aren’t welcome. Pedro had been quite surprised when he’d come upstairs to find Balthazar refereeing a dispute between Ben and Bea but he’d relaxed once he had realised it was all amicable.

Once most of the pizza is gone and the eating pace has slowed, he decides to ask some questions. ‘So guys, Balth said something about the bath?’

Ben and Bea look at each other and he steals a look at Balthazar who shakes his head quickly. ‘I mean, err, what’s important is that you two are sort of getting along now and I’m really pleased,’ he says hastily and is rewarded with a smirk from Balthazar. Apparently he’s not supposed to be questioning the recent reconciliation but he’ll be quizzing his boyfriend later, that’s for sure.

Ben and Bea leave fairly soon after the food has disappeared, Bea announces that she should be going and then Ben casually says that he should be off too, ignoring Pedro and Balthazar’s grins. They go out of the front door and almost immediately, Pedro tries to interrogate Balthazar about what had happened before he’d come upstairs.

‘Shh,’ Balth mutters, holding up a hand. ‘I want to see what happens.’

Together they creep over to the half open window that overlooks the pavement outside the café. Ben and Bea are standing awkwardly right underneath the window and their words are drifting faintly up to the listeners above.

‘…this was nice,’ Ben says.

‘Yeah.’

‘We should, um, I don’t know-‘ he breaks off to scratch the back of his neck and Pedro sighs impatiently.

‘We should get coffee,’ Bea blurts before he can continue and beside Pedro, Balthazar wriggles with excitement.

‘Err, yeah, okay,’ Ben says. ‘But.’

‘But not here,’ she says, laughing slightly. ‘How about the place across town?’

Pedro wants to yell indignantly out of the window. The place across town serves awful coffee and their cookies are stale but Balthazar clamps a warning hand around his and he remembers he’s not supposed to be listening.

‘Yeah, that sounds good. Fewer people to overhear things.’ Is it Pedro’s imagination or did Ben raise his voice slightly at that?

‘Okay, well I’m going this way and you’re…’

‘I’m going the other way. I’ll see you later then?’

‘See you later.’

They look as if they might hug but don’t quite manage it. The awkwardness is painful to see. Pedro and Balthazar practically hang out of the window to watch them walk away before turning to each other and immediately babbling in excitement.

The final word goes to Pedro as he suddenly realises something. ‘Did you notice, Ben didn’t go on a rant about tea being better than coffee?’

Balthazar nods. ‘It’s almost as if he’s trying to reduce the conflict and arguing. Woah.’

‘Woah,’ Pedro echoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah ok, people are actually reading this which is a bit of a surprise. Hello! *waves dorkily* you all have lovely ears (can I still do that?)


	26. Dancing

Bea unlocks the door as quietly as she can and slips inside before realising that the hall light is still on. That’s strange. Hero usually turns off all the lights every time she leaves the room which is quite inconvenient if you’re still in there.

The sitting room door is open and light spills out, along with music. Bea peers round the door and finds Hero dancing incredibly enthusiastically to Taylor Swift. She executes a pretty neat pirouette and then abruptly halts, arms still raised, as she catches sight of Bea.

‘Er, hi Bea,’ she says nonchalantly, as if she’s been caught reading or scrolling tumblr instead of dancing ridiculously at one am.

‘It’s one in the morning Hero, don’t you have work tomorrow?’ Bea asks.

‘Yeah, I just, well, dance party you know?’ Hero replies, reaching to switch the music off.

‘I know the call of a dance party. What happened then? It must be something good…’

‘You could say that! I got some good news about something I’ve been planning. So I needed a victory dance party even though it’s so late. I should probably go to bed, you’re right.’

Hero slips out of the room before Bea has really gathered her thoughts. She follows her up the stairs wondering why, for all her enthusiasm, she didn’t want to be very detailed about her good news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hero's got to express her excitement somehow hasn't she...


	27. What Happened at Midnight

Pedro and Balthazar had just about calmed down from the excitement of watching Ben and Bea interact when Pedro realised there was someone else who needed to know.

‘I need to call Hero, she needs to know about the developments.’

‘You sound like a second rate spy film when you say things like that,’ Balth says with a smirk.

‘Shut up. I’d be a first rate spy, at least James Bond level or something.’

‘Sure. Who was it who nearly blew our cover earlier by shouting out of the window about coffee quality?’

Pedro huffs and decides to ignore that. ‘I’m going to call Hero anyway.’

‘It’s midnight, won’t she be asleep?’

‘I think she’ll forgive me for waking her up when I tell her what just happened…’

Balthazar shrugged and went to get ready for bed. He was excited about the plan working finally but he wasn’t about to sacrifice his sleep for it.

Pedro slipped into the room just as he was dropping off.

‘Balth, Balthy, oh shit, are you asleep?’

‘Not quite,’ he mumbled.

‘Hero’s really excited, she’s off to have a dance party,’ Pedro hissed.

Balthazar rolled over and looked at Pedro through slitted eyes. ‘Good. Can I go to sleep now?’

‘Yeah, sorry, I’ve just got to clean my teeth.’

Balthazar drifts off and is only vaguely aware of Pedro’s arms slipping round him and pulling him into his chest. He dreams of Hero dancing as Ben and Bea argue the way they always used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the kudos and especially the comments, they've been really encouraging me to keep writing this :)


	28. Baking

That weekend, Hero is putting a cake tin into the oven when she hears the knocker on the door.

‘I’ll get it,’ Bea yells, cantering down the stairs.

Hero listens to Bea and Ben awkwardly greeting each other and smirks while weighing out the icing sugar.

Ben glances through to the kitchen as they come past and stops to greet her. ‘Hero! Ah, I’ve missed your baking!’

‘Hi Ben, I didn’t know you were coming today,’ she says with a hint of a question in her voice.

Bea interjects, ‘he’s come to watch the new Thrones episode, his TV wasn’t working and luckily I recorded it to watch today.’

Hero raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. She knows very well that Ben was with Pedro watching Game of Thrones last night because Pedro was texting her updates of how often he talked about Beatrice.

Bea and Ben leave and Hero can hear them debating on where they should sit to get the best view as she begins to text Pedro.

_Ben’s here to watch GOT… apparently his TV wasn’t working_

Her phone chimes quickly with a reply and she puts it on silent so that she doesn’t attract Bea’s attention.

_WHAT but he watched it with me. Oh, I get it, he had to find an excuse to spend time with Bea. Nice._

She sits in the kitchen as the scent of baking cake fills the room and listens to Benedick and Beatrice relaxing into each others' company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun story: I got blocked on this because I came to the sudden realisation that none of my characters (apart from Pedro) seemed to have actual jobs. So just to let you know, Hero is a fashion blogger and makes/ sells clothes online and Bea is a freelance writer/ commentator for various online publications and Ben is going to start job hunting soon. Balthy is, of course , a musician


	29. Sigh

Ben goes into the coffee shop a few days later and is greeted by Pedro grinning like a maniac.

‘So I heard you were at Bea’s this weekend? Watching Thrones if I heard correctly?’

‘How did you- oh, Hero told you. Can I have some tea please?’

Pedro grabs a teapot and chucks the tea leaves into the basket as he talks. ‘You know it’s funny because I could swear we watched Thrones at mine the night before?’

Ben rolls his eyes. ‘Yes alright, I watched it twice. In my defence it was a really good episode and Bea wanted company and Hero hates Game of Thrones so I was really doing her a favour… look, just give me the tea and stop looking at me like that.’

Pedro puts the pot on a tray with a cookie and waves away Ben’s proffered money. ‘Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ve actually got something I need to talk to you about if you don’t mind.’

Ben raises an eyebrow and Pedro snorts. ‘No, I mean seriously. Though I could squeeze in a little more Beatrice related teasing if you’d like?’

‘No thanks. What’s this serious thing then?’

Pedro settles opposite Ben and sighs gently. ‘I want to propose.’

‘To me? Pedro, I’m flattered but I mean, I thought we were seeing other people… okay, serious face now. Propose? That’s so exciting! But why are you talking to me, surely you should be talking to your prospective fiancé?’

‘I want your help. Just to, you know, plan stuff and make sure everything goes smoothly and make sure I don’t panic and mess it up.’

‘Wait, are you suggesting I’ll be there to hold your hand?’

‘Um not exactly but you’ll be there. I want to do it at Balthy’s gig on Friday night.’

‘Woah, woah Pedro. Super romantic and everything but have you actually thought about this. You know how private Balthy is about you two, do you really think he’ll want a public proposal? Have you even talked to him about this in general terms? Does he even want to get married?’

‘Err. Oh. Shit.’ Pedro looks as if Ben has dropped an encyclopaedia on his head. ‘Do you think he doesn’t want to get married?’ he asks weakly, as if he hasn’t even considered the possibility.

‘I think you need to talk to him,’ Ben says gently, inwardly panicking. When did he become this person, the person who brought Pedro back to earth instead of encouraging him to float higher on a mist of fantasy and optimism?

‘Yeah, yeah I guess so,’ Pedro sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for some reason Pedro wanted to propose and I couldn't just tell him that this was supposed to be about Ben and Bea could I? To me, Pedro seems like the kind of guy who would decide to do the proposing thing without exactly thinking it through...


	30. Confession

‘I’ll be back later, bye!’ Bea shouts.

‘Wait, where are you going?’ Hero calls back.

‘Out.’

Hero comes into the hallway and looks at Beatrice appraisingly. ‘Out?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You look nice.’

‘Thanks, I thought I ought to make an effort,’ she pauses uncertainly, ‘urgh, I think it might be a date-‘

‘A date… with… Ben?’

‘Yeah. Oh noo, I swore this wouldn’t happen. And now I have to tell him.’

‘Tell him what?’ Hero asks, confused.

‘Tell him it’s a date. Or, I don’t know, confess that I want it to be a date.’

Hero takes Bea’s hand and leads her to sit down. ‘Bea, did he ask you out?’

‘He asked me to meet him for coffee at this new coffee shop.’

‘And you said yes?’

‘Yeah and then we discussed the ideal time to have coffee and he said that maybe we could check out this bookstore he’d heard about that was near the coffee shop and he’s coming to pick me up really soon and… I’m not sure what’s going on.’

‘Take a deep breath. In and out. Come on, you just need to breathe. Bea, it sounds like a date to me. And it sounds like he asked you out on a date, not just for a friendly coffee, he’s coming to pick you up-‘

Hero breaks off as someone knocks on the door. ‘- and there he is, right on time. It’s definitely a date if he arrived on time.’

Bea looks like she’s about to scream so Hero gets up to open the door. On the other side, Ben is wearing a nervous grin and a shirt that may have even come in contact with an iron.

‘Hi Hero, is Bea around?’

‘Yes, I’m just coming,’ Bea calls from behind Hero and some of the tension falls from Ben’s face. He’d definitely been worried she wouldn’t be there.

‘Okay, let’s go. See you later Hero.’ Bea has somehow recovered from her earlier worries and she saunters through the door as if she hasn’t a care in the world. There’s still some awkwardness in the way she and Ben walk next to each other but as they turn the corner, she catches his free hand and smiles up at him and it’s definitely a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah so nearly done! hope you enjoyed :)


	31. Bleurgh

It’s Friday night and Balthazar’s gig is about to start. It’s a fairly small event but Balthazar prefers the smaller venues honestly, he feels more comfortable when he can make eye contact with the audience and in particular, his friends in the audience.

He can see Pedro and Hero chatting excitedly and Ben and Bea standing slightly too close and avoiding looking at each other. He does a final check on his guitar tuning and then looks up to the audience to introduce himself.

‘Hi everyone, I’m Balthazar Jones, I hope you enjoy this...’

The gig goes smoothly but as always, he feels relieved that it’s over. He always anticipates that something will go horribly wrong and it’ll be his fault. After nearly 10 years he should have got over that worry but he still hasn’t.

Once he’s packed up his kit and chatted a little with the owner of the bar, he goes over to join his friends.

‘Hey guys,’ he says, accepting a drink and a kiss from Pedro.

‘Hey,’ they chorus back.

He leans against Pedro and listens as they continue a conversation that’s clearly been going for a while. Pedro kisses his forehead absently and wraps an arm around his waist and Balth notices that Ben is watching them. He raises an eyebrow at him and Ben blushes.

‘Bleurgh!’ he exclaims, far too enthusiastically.

Beatrice jumps beside him and then notices what has upset him.

‘Bleurgh! Too cute, too saccharine, why must you do this to us?’ she wails in counterpoint to Ben’s continued exclamations.

They continue to exclaim until Hero tells them to shut up because they’re attracting quite a bit of attention.

‘Just because you’re jealous,’ Pedro smirks, ‘we’re damn cute but there’s no need to overreact.’

Balthazar grins sleepily, ‘yeah, we are damn cute.’

Hero giggles. Only she has noticed that Ben and Bea are very firmly gripping hands beneath the table. She’ll tell Pedro later, it’ll be their final confirmation that team love gods has struck again with deadly accuracy.

* * *

 

That night, well early morning to be exact, Balthazar is sleepily cleaning his teeth when Pedro appears behind him in the mirror.

‘Hey, Balth,’ he says uneasily.

‘What?’

‘I just, er, I was going to do this earlier, at the gig, but I got some better advice so um, here goes.’

Before Balthazar’s astonished countenance, Pedro drops to one knee and holds out a small jewellery box. ‘Balth, will you marry me?’

It’s moments like these that Stanley Balthazar Jones will treasure forever. He’s half asleep, has a mouth full of toothpaste and toothbrush and his amazing boyfriend is kneeling on the cold tiled bathroom floor proposing to him.

He hurriedly spits into the sink and reaches towards Pedro. ‘Yes. You idiot! YES!’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I almost left this at 'Balth will you marry me?' But then I really wanted to write Balthy's reaction too. I know this was mainly a Beadick fic but I love Pedrazar a lot too and I couldn't just abandon that proposal so yeah. If I hadn't written it here I'd just have ended up writing another chapter...   
> Excitingly, I can now declare this fic finished! I hope you enjoyed because it's been fun to write :)  
> Also this fic is basically for Mia who encouraged me to keep writing this and is finishing writing her dissertation at the moment (which I know will be fab) *hugs*


End file.
